Cultural Development in Queenstown Lakes District Draft October 2018 aeaconsulting.com CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSTOWN aeaconsulting.com 2 LAKES DISTRICT, NEW ZEALAND Background During the week of 24-30 June, I had the privilege of visiting Queenstown, Note Glenorchy, Arrowtown and Wanaka — all within the Queenstown Lakes District of New Zealand’s Otago region. The visit was at the invitation of Mayor Jim Boult, and a group of community members assembled by Jay Cassells (who organised the visit) and Carroll Joynes. As part of the visit, I attended a reception and informal discussion co-hosted by Sir Eion Edgar, the Mayor, and Jay Cassells. Interviewees to whom I spoke either individually or in small groups during the week are listed at Appendix One. This note summarizes my observations from the visit and subsequent conversations and makes some recommendations on whether and how arts and cultural provision in Queenstown Lakes District might be supported and developed. The genesis of the visit was an extended discussion with Carroll and Jay starting in 2016 about cultural and artistic life in the District and about how the arts could provide an effective catalyst for a place-making strategy that would bring the town centre more fully back into civic life. It is currently perceived by many residents as being ‘at risk’ since it is now so heavily geared toward the tourist market. The draw for the local population includes some restaurants, an independent bookshop and local government offices, but it currently lacks a critical mass of amenities to make it a regular destination for residents. It has been proposed in the District’s draft Town Centre Masterplan that the centre might be recovered for the community through, among other measures, some form of strategic investment in both cultural programming and infrastructure. Specifically, a site around the Stanley Street — Ballarat Street intersection has been suggested as a potential location for a purpose-built arts centre, something that Queenstown and indeed the District is currently missing. I was asked to consider this idea and place it in the context of the wider cultural infrastructure needs of the District. This note therefore expands the initial focus from the town centre to the district as a whole. Adrian Ellis AEA Consulting October 2018 Cover image: Queenstown Source: Pictureboss.com CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSTOWN aeaconsulting.com 3 LAKES DISTRICT, NEW ZEALAND Wanaka Glenorchy Arrowtown Queenstown 25 km © OpenStreetMap contributors. Tiles: CC-BY-SA 2.0 1 : 941 745 Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors Queenstown Lakes District Otago, New Zealand CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSTOWN aeaconsulting.com 4 LAKES DISTRICT, NEW ZEALAND 1. Queenstown Lakes District Queenstown District has a rich and distinctive character. Ngāi Tahu Māori visited Queenstown en route to collect Pounamu (greenstone) and a settlement called Te Kirikiri Pa, occupied by the tribe of Kāti Mamoe, was situated where the current Queenstown Gardens are, on the edge of Lake Wakatipu1. The first Europeans arrived in 1853 and the Otago gold rush of the 1860s followed the discovery of gold in the Arrow River in 1862. Queenstown streets still bear names from the gold mining era — such as Camp Street — and some historic buildings remain. These include William’s Cottage, the Lake Lodge of Ophir, and St Peter’s Anglican Church, all which lie close together in a designated historic precinct. Farming — especially sheep and cattle farming — became and remains a significant land use and viniculture dates back to the 1890s. Otago is a major wine producer, adding an important dimension to the current tourist offer. The District encompasses an area of outstanding natural beauty, recognized internationally for the overwhelming drama of its rivers, lakes and mountains, which regularly serve as a backdrop for film and tv shoots. The dramatic landscape is central to both the character and the economy, and today tourism is by some distance the most significant sector of the local economy, bringing some $2 billion per annum to the District. (Construction currently comes second.) Within the general rubric of tourism, skiing, hiking and adventure sports dominate. The District is in some ways seen as a paradigmatic example of what is distinctive about New Zealand. The volume of tourism has grown significantly in recent years — currently 5.5m visitor nights for the District, compared with a total residential population of some 37,000 — and this growth is projected to continue. The pace and character of development is a major point in civic discussions. Data on trends in tourism and population growth can be found at Appendix Two. Although winter and summer sports are clearly differentiated, the ‘shoulders’ between 1 Further in the text, Queenstown District is referred to as the District CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSTOWN aeaconsulting.com 5 LAKES DISTRICT, NEW ZEALAND them have steadily narrowed as operators have found ways to extend both seasons until they practically touch, leading to a year-round industry. The growth of tourism has brought prosperity and employment to the community, but its success has also brought a number of predictable pressures. ■ The most obvious manifestation is pressure for development to accom- modate and support growth — especially around Frankton and the airport, effectively an overspill community adjacent to Queenstown; ■ Property and land values are extremely high, affecting the character of District living conditions and commute times, especially of those in lower paid employment in the public sector and tourism and construction industries; ■ There is continuous increase in the volume of air traffic, with a shuttle service from Queenstown to Auckland introduced in 2016, and further flights recently proposed and contested, alongside proposals to reintroduce commercial flights in and out of Wanaka; ■ Infrastructure — especially traffic and parking related infrastructure — is stretched to capacity. These pressures are set to continue with domestic visitors recently forecast to double, and international visitors to triple by 2026. (See Appendix Two.) Another ‘negative externality’ of this growth is that the character of the Town Centre has changed dramatically in response to the demands of mass tourism. Bars, mid-scale restaurants and chain stores catering for the tourist market predominate and there are 260 licensed premises in the District — an increase of 35% since 20142. The official Queenstown tourism website suggests that: If you’re in the mood for a drink or two — or even looking for a whole week’s worth of debauchery — you’ve chosen the right place3. Headlines such as the recent and lurid ‘Tourist run over while lying drunk on Queenstown road’4 have Above: Queenstown Photo by Jeff Finley 2 See https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/dramatic-rise-liquor-licences-issued 3 https://www.queenstownnz.co.nz/stories/10-reasons-queenstown-wins-the-snow-wars/?utm_ source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Native&utm_campaign=Winter-2018&utm_content=Article-SnowWars 4 https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105409009/tourist-run-over-while-lying-drunk-on-queenstown-road CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN QUEENSTOWN aeaconsulting.com 6 LAKES DISTRICT, NEW ZEALAND created both image and management problems for the town that are to some extent self-inflicted, and to which civic leaders are highly sensitized. Mayor Boult described it thus in June: We [also] hold the mantle of being the poster child for New Zealand’s largest industry — tourism. We cannot continue however, to chase visitor numbers. At a point, we need to consider the quality and financial benefit from visitors. An important part of this work will also be the “ diversification and enhancement of the reasons why folk come here.“ Whilst some of the adverse impact of burgeoning mass mid-market tourism is in evidence in the Town Centre, the rest of the District has meanwhile been subject to some countervailing trends. One in particular is the growing attractiveness of the District to mobile and affluent retirees and second- and third-homers from New Zealand and around the world: Australia and the United States, and now increasingly from China and other parts of Asia. The list of international celebrities and Forbes rich-list names who have some relationship with the District is notable; and for a small town, Queenstown features with surprising regularity in publications like the New Yorker, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal in the context of the life-styles and contingency plans of the rich and famous. The attraction that the District represents to people who have the possibility of choosing anywhere on the planet to live is not a new phenomenon, but it is a continuing one and to some extent accelerating — driven by globalization; by well-documented trends in wealth distribution increasing the cohort of mobile ‘super-rich’; and by what The Financial Times recently termed ‘apocalypse insurance’5 — that is, the attractiveness that South Island’s geographical remoteness from the world’s trouble spots represents to ‘super-preppers’. Affluent retirees and people who have bought second homes represent an important part of the local community as do — at the other extreme — the transient workers who are essential to the tourist industry. They have common cause with those who are interested in ensuring that there is a calibrated approach to tourism and development; that the distinctive character of the place is preserved; and that there is an active cultural dimension to community life. They bring much to the community — and potentially can bring much more. But they too put upward pressure on land values6. Queenstown is one of the most expensive real estate markets in New Zealand. Glenorchy boasts the third most expensive property ever sold in New Zealand. 5 https://www.ft.com/content/4e81247c-c92d-11e7-8536-d321d0d897a3 6 There is currently legislation under review that prevents foreign purchase of existing property. The impact is difficult to assess until the scope has been finalized and there is a wide range of opinion as to its long- term impact, depending on how tightly drafted the provisions in the final Act are.